by their history to be suitable to them, were plunged
into anarchy; the people fell into a baneful superstition, and a
greater part of their landed and other property found its way into the
possession of the Roman Church.

I have selected the foregoing illustration, drawn from American history,
in preference to many others that might have been taken from European,
because it furnishes an instance of the operation of the acting
principle least interfered with by extraneous conditions. European
political progress is less simple than American.

QUARREL BETWEEN FRANCE AND THE PAPACY. Before considering its manner
of action, and its results, I will briefly relate how the scientific
principle found an introduction into Europe.

INTRODUCTION OF SCIENCE INTO EUROPE. Not only had the Crusades, for many
years, brought vast sums to Rome, extorted from the fears or the piety
of every Christian nation; they had also increased the papal power to a
most dangerous extent. In the dual governments everywhere prevailing in
Europe, the spiritual had obtained the mastery; the temporal was little
better than its servant.

From all quarters, and under all kinds of pretenses, streams of money
were steadily flowing into Italy. The temporal princes found that there
were left for them inadequate and impoverished revenues. Philip the
Fair, King of France (A.D. 1300), not only determined to check this
drain from his dominions, by prohibiting the export of gold and
silver without his license; he also resolved that the clergy and the
ecclesiastical estates should pay their share of taxes to him.
This brought on a mortal contest with the papacy. The king was
excommunicated, and, in retaliation, he accused the pope, Boniface
VIII., of atheism; demanding that he should be tried by a general
council. He sent some trusty persons into Italy, who seized Boniface in
his palace at Anagni, and treated him with so much severity, that in a
few days he died. The succeeding pontiff, Benedict XI., was poisoned.

The French king was determined that the papacy should be purified and
reformed; that it should no longer be the appanage of a few Italian
families, who were dexterously transmuting the credulity of Europe into
coin--that French influence should prevail in it. He Therefore came to
an understanding with the cardinals; a French archbishop was elevated
to the pontificate; he took the name of Clement V. The papal court was
removed to Avignon, in France, and